Eliphas (Earth-616)
, , , | Relatives = Aurelia (ex-wife, deceased) | Universe = Earth-616 | BaseOfOperations = Mobile; Formerly Ancient Rome | Gender = Male | Height = 6'0" | Weight = 190 lbs | Eyes = Brown | Hair = Black | UnusualFeatures = Long vampire teeth when in monster form | CharRef = | Citizenship = Roman | MaritalStatus = Divorced | Occupation = Wanderer; Former Roman Senator, poet, soldier | Education = Presumably educated within Roman educational system, Roman military training | Origin = Given eternal life and a need to feed on others by Selene | PlaceOfBirth = Possibly Rome | Creators = Christopher Yost; Craig Kyle; Clayton Crain | First = X-Force Vol 3 #1 | Death = X-Force Vol 3 #24 | HistoryText = Early Life Some two thousand years ago, Eliphas was a promising soldier before being injured in battle. He later tried to be a poet until he met Aurelia, who granted him a seat in the Senate. Unfortunately, he was only a puppet for Aurelia to sell his seat to Mascius, a high ranking general, with whom she was having an affair. Eliphias was forced out of his wife's home, with only two ruby earrings in his hands. He gave them to a slave girl named Claudia. With his entire life in shambles, Eli wandered the streets of Rome, when he met a woman named Selene, who knew a lot about him. She offered him a ride in her carriage. At first, Eliphas presumed that she was in Rome for Senate business until she offered him eternal life and her love if he helped her sacrifice every soul in Rome. Eli soon agreed when Mascius acquired his seat in the Senate without his knowledge and Aurelia burned all of his possessions. All that Eliphas had to do was smear five runes around Rome in his own blood to enact a spell that would allow Selene to reap the tens of thousands of souls for her to gain immortality. However, Eliphias spotted Claudia and warned her of what was going to happen and instructed her not to tell anyone but her family. Unfortunately, his little act of kindness would seal his fate, as Claudia's father warned Mascius of the plot and Eliphas was captured before he could initiate the spell as well as Selene. They were taken to stakes outside the city to be burned. Selene awoke quickly and turned the flames against their would-be executioners. Furious at Eliphas for his failure, with her lifeforce withering away from use of her magic, she absorbed his, denying him death or even herself to him. This made him a vampire-like mutate. Seven hundred years later, a farmer discovered Eliphas' body in a field and was swiftly killed through a swift bite to the jugular. Eliphas returned to his former house, learning that it had been centuries and the people living there were descendants of Mascius and Aurelia. Furious, Eliphas slaughtered the entire family, before causing plague in Rome so he could re-obtain the dagger he had intended to use centuries ago. Still desperately in love with Selene, Eliphas traced her tracks, causing death everywhere he went. Eventually, he changed his name to Eli Bard and followed Selene's trail to the New World. He encountered a tribe of Apache who recognized him for what he was but were unable to kill him. He massacred the tribe for sustenance, which was blamed on diseases brought by the Europeans. Modern Times By the 20th century, he had found Selene in Nova Roma but was too scared to approach her. He needed an offering to appease her, meaning that he would enact the same ritual he had two millennia before. He eventually joined the Purifiers, figuring that the religious mutant haters would be perfect sacrifices for Selene. In the aftermath of the Coopertown massacre, Eli assisted Matthew Risman in recovering Bastion's head from a S.H.I.E.L.D. base and attaching it to the body of Nimrod. The android soon began enacting plans for the extermination of mutantkind, involving the recovery of an offspring of Magus. However, Bastion didn't trust Eli, as he had no record of him, future or present in his data banks. Only Risman's vouching for Bard kept him from being killed. Bard later accompanied Risman and his newly assembled Choir, willing and unwilling Purifiers injected with the techno-organic virus from Angel's wings to grow their own metallic wings. The plan was to regain control of the Purifiers from Bastion who had resurrected William Stryker and transformed him into an unholy technarch. But as Archangel interfered, seeking vengeance on those who took his wings, Eli broke the casing around the spawn of Magus, absorbing the Transmode Virus into his left arm. Risman came in, ready to destroy the Technarch and was shocked at what he saw. Bard soon revealed his true nature and was about to suck Risman dry, but his former friend was killed by X-23. Furious that he was robbed of Risman's blood, he moved on to X-23, planning to feast on her continually as her healing factor would resurrect her. Again he was thwarted when he was stabbed in the back by James Proudstar. Realizing he could be hurt by Proudstar's vibranium knives, Bard fled with the Transmode Virus. Bard dug up the graves of the Apache tribe he had slaughtered, and reanimated their corpses with the Transmode Virus. However, this provoked their animal gods, who charged at him. Using his dagger, Bard poisoned them with dark magic and created the Demon Bear, but lost the dagger in the process. One interesting resurrected prospect was Caliban. He presented Caliban to Selene, as he would be able to find all dead mutants so that he could resurrect them as his offering; she was very pleased. Bard then went on to revive many deceased mutants, including the Hellions, Cypher, Destiny, and many more, so that Selene could exact her revenge on the people who had failed her in her quest for godhood. Eventually, Bard resurrected the countless mutants of Genosha. Unfortunately, as Selene required the dagger to complete the ritual, Bard attempted to convince Blink to help him retrieve it, only for Blink to reveal his deception to Selene. Bard then accompanied Selene's Inner Circle to Utopia to retrieve the dagger from the X-Men. But once they completed their task, Selene stabbed Bard with the dagger, effectively killing him. | Powers = *'Revenant:' Eli Bard was cursed by Selene with an unholy form and immortality, resembling a vampire. He possessed great strength, recuperative powers, and could manifest fangs or dissolve into mist. *'Techno-Organic Virus:' Eli Bard absorbed the Transmode Virus from the nascent Magus, giving his body techno-organic properties. He chiefly used the virus to infect and resurrect the dead as slaves under the command of him and Selene. | Abilities = After fusing with a portion of a spawn of Magus, Eli Bard could imbue others with the trans-mode virus, enabling him to reanimate corpses. | Strength = Superhuman type | Weaknesses = Requires human sustenance to replenish himself. | Equipment = | Transportation = Plane | Weapons = | Notes = * His current alias, Eli Bard, is likely a shortening of his real name, Eliphas, and the word "bard", which is a synonym for poet, his original profession. | Trivia = | Marvel = | Wikipedia = | Links = * uncannyxmen.net Character Profiles: Eli Bard }} Category:Techno-Organic Virus Category:Immortals Category:Mutates Category:Magic-Based Mutates Category:Senators Category:Necrosha casualties Category:Romans Category:Greek Religion